National News

Chinese woman guilty of Mar-a-Lago breach

12 September 2019

A Chinese national arrested after bluffing her way into US President Donald Trump's Florida resort, sparking concerns that she could pose an intelligence threat, has been found guilty of lying to a federal officer and trespassing.

The woman, Yujing Zhang, 33, stood blinking rapidly as each of the 12 jurors told US District Judge Roy Altman they agreed with the verdict convicting her on all counts, a decision reached after roughly four hours of deliberation following a two-day trial.

Zhang faces up to six years in federal prison when she is sentenced on November 22.

Flanked by two US marshals, Zhang listened to the verdict on Wednesday and to the judge order her remanded to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

She was led out of the Fort Lauderdale courtroom without incident, smiling politely and wearing the same pink shirt and tan pants she has worn since she changed out of her brown jail garb at the start of the trial after a small brouhaha over missing undergarments.

Zhang made international headlines in March when she was arrested carrying multiple electronic devices at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach.

Baffling behaviour marked Zhang's trial in US District Court in Fort Lauderdale from the start. She insisted on acting as her own lawyer despite the judge's entreaties.

She also delayed the start of jury selection on Monday by complaining that she did not have the correct underwear she needed for the trial.

The central question of what precisely Zhang was doing at the Trump private property remained unanswered, with prosecutors offering no explanation in court for her motives.

Zhang's actions at the resort sparked concerns that she might have been a spy, though she was charged only with trespassing and making false statements.

Prosecutors focused on trying to prove she used deception to gain unlawful access to private property.

Zhang insisted she was entitled to admission to Mar-a-Lago by way of a contract for which she had paid $US20,000 to attend a US-China economic development event at the resort.

"I did nothing wrong," she told jurors in halting English in her closing argument. "I did not lie."

Assistant US Attorney Rolando Garcia countered that Zhang had been notified in advance that the event she had planned to attend had been cancelled and that she had demanded her money back.

Garcia also detailed how Zhang allegedly hoodwinked US Secret Service agents to get past resort security checkpoints and on to the property, in part by passing herself off as the relative of an actual club member of the same name.

"She knew she wasn't supposed to be there," Garcia said.

At the time of her arrest, Zhang had four mobile phones, a laptop computer, an external hard drive and a thumb drive later found to contain "malicious malware" in her possession, the Secret Service said in a court filing.